Well there is a lot to write about. Often I thought of writing blog during my time back in Chicago but I never did. To sum up that year, I wasn't happy. I felt like an outsider, I didn't know what I was doing, I pretty much wasted that year working for a low paying cooking job and not doing much else. The only two highlights of that year was my visit to German and the wheel world championship. I have been here for only a week and already I feel so much better. When I'm in Germany, whether it is in the town my boyfriend lives or here at the circus, this place feels like home.

What is home? Often I think of this question and a few things come to mind, the Cheers intro. "want to go where everyone knows your name" and Go the Distance from Hercules "I have often dream of a far off place, where a great warm welcome will be waiting for me, where the crowds will cheer when they see my face, and a voice keeps saying this is where I'm meant to be" Both those things are here, that's why I love it here, that is why I keep coming back, that is why I will do what I can and have to to stay.

The first 4 days here I spent with my boyfriend and they were nice. We didn't do much of anything and I got the relaxation I needed. I've been going out with him now for a year and for me this is something new and strange. To have someone who cares about me and not just uses me. I'm still getting used to the idea of being with someone who actually loves me and wants to be with me. I worry about what the future holds for us if I don't get a visa, I don't know if I can do long distance again, I mean I guess time will only tell.

Then Sunday afternoon I came here to Pimparello, a place where I have always been in love with since the first time I came here 8 years ago. Here I am surrounded by nature and people who like me. I mean I get off the bus and there are my friends shouting my name. I know there are many people in Chicago who love having me around but I think the big difference is Chicago is big and people are always busy, where here we are all in the same area and have time to hang out with each other. Here I also have my own space. I can do what I want more or less, I have my own room to keep how I want. Here I learned and wanted to keep my room nice and take care of me personally. In Chicago I have to many other things to worry about and that is not bad I choose to do that but here I can turn it off. I can focus on me and the life I want.

I don't know the point of this blog really, I had more ideas but now can't put them in words. I guess the most important thing is that here I am happy and I hope I can find a way to stay here.

So it hasn't been fully one week since I left but almost. It has been a really hard week. When I left Pimparello in the car I cried and at the airport after my boyfriend left I just started bawling. For me that means a lot, its not that I don't cry but it is not very often that I do. Since then I have come to realize a few things, A) I never at any point was 100% for leaving Germany, B) I really hated my life here in Chicago before I left C) I like my new boyfriend more than I realized. SO to break these down further we will start with A.I think it was around April/May I had to choose if I was leaving or staying, I mean the question was always there but I needed to make a choice so we could buy the ticket and such. I was always on the fence, one week wanted to stay a month later I wanted to leave. But even during the times when I wanted to leave it was never 100% it was never "I want to get eh fuck out of here let me get in a car/plane and go". I mean everyone has bad days, and there are days your boss pisses you off or you think your co-workers are incompetent, but that is everywhere. I will say however there were days when I was in Chicago I wanted to GTFO, I was ready to leave when I got on the plan so many months ago. I was not ready to leave Germany, but when I decided that it was to late the ticket had been brought the plans had been laid out and there wasn't anything I could really do. B.I have come to realize just how unhappy I was with my life before I left. Why? Because I have left off almost exactly where I left off. I am going back to two of the same jobs I had before, I would be going back to the third but the restaurant has closed while I was gone. I am trying to figure out my living situation and I still am surrounded by people who love me but I feel so isolated. Ok so to break this down a bit more, I hate working at the University I feel like it is a waste of my time and that the job is beneath my level. However I work there because it is a pay check and it gives me the time off to go back to Germany. So it was get a job worth my time and level of skill but not be able to go back to Germany or go but for a shorter amount of time or suck it up and deal with it and that is what I am doing. The wheel job is not so bad I love being part of that but that is only a part time job. My living situation since I have been back has been a little more complicated and well let's just say that it has made em act like my old high school self. But more importantly I feel I should talk about is how I am back and I have my friends but I feel isolated I feel like I don't belong and then no one understands what I am going through. I just came back from a 15 month trip where I more or less had the life I wanted. (Yeah I was doing more circus then cooking and so but I had my own place was taking care of myself and living more or less like I want(ed) to.) But I feel like all the progress I made is getting lost because it just doesn't translate back to my life here. Yes I won't lose it all but it is going to be harder and take much more effort from me to keep it all. Everyone says the beginning is going to be the hardest and I get that, but I just wonder when does it get better and how. C.So I know a lot of people are curious about this topic. It was "Oh look, Jesse has a boyfriend now....What?!?!" and yeah I mean that is how it was for me too. I mean if you have followed my blog since I left we know there were a few boys I had some interest in but they did not feel the same and I had given up on German guys and was talking to a few people back in the States but then I started hanging out with a new co-worker and she took me out to the city and I met some of her friends. I remember the first day I met them I didn't think any thing of it then I mean yeah naturally you take in the looks and I thought he looked cute but I was leaving so what did it matter. That same day we were talking a bunch and about nothing really in particular. And it was one of the first days I had had in a while. Then me and my co-worker kept hanging out and going to see them and I realized that I was starting to like this guy. I remember the day I admitted it to myself. We went over to the flat in Aallen (the near by town) and he wasn't there. And I was like "Yo where he at" and he had his flat around the corner so I was like, "Umm can we go get him....let's go get him" and we actually walked over to his flat and was like get dressed you're coming. If I remember correctly it was the day before our first kiss too. I mean this all happened really quick and came out of no where. But you know some people say there is no time limit on love. Now I am not saying this is love I mean it is all still new but it fall under that. So anyway after we started dating it all still happened fast, I mean he came and stayed with me a few days, and we talked and got to know each other more and more. And it is so.... oh I don't know how to explain it, but we come from similar backgrounds, we like similar things, and his dad lives in the suburbs of Chicago and it's all these things and I just really like it. I was talking with my sister about it and she pointed out how this is my first real relationship or if you don't like that term then my first adult relationship. And she is right and it scares me. Some of you may know in the past I have been very out spoken about never having a long distance relationship and that I didn't understand people who did it, but to say the least now I do. I wasn't even the one who suggested we stay together, I mean honestly I wanted to but I also don't want people to do something just because they think that is what I want. I am the type of person who says do what you want and I mean it. So when he was like we can make it work my stomach did a flip. This is all new to me, having someone I really like and get along with on so many levels and he wants to be with me in every way. I don't know how to put all this in words but I think I am getting a new understanding in things in this matter. I know I am very excited to be with him and I hate not actually being with him but I am very excited and terrified to see where this leads and I hope it all works out.

It's been nearly 2 and a half months since my last post and I have 1 week left here.....

I’ve been thinking about writing a blog for a while now but am finally actually doing it. So much has been going on and I can’t really find the words that would explain what I feel. For a while I guess I had been feeling kind of isolated. I wanted to go home to my friends who fully understood me, to jobs where I was respected and worked with people who knew what they were doing and to be in a city where I could go where I wanted. Then an interesting thing happened; I made some new friends. It was the new cook, and at first I didn’t think I would like her. I thought she was this new person all German and she was going to be the final thing that made my favorite cook leave. It was not so. One day after work I Sarah and Rebecca went with her to her horses after work. It was ok nothing special but it made us all friends. So the week I had to work alone she told me to call her and said we would go out. I was hesitant at first, I thought oh here’s another person nothing to special or exciting, we probably will just go out for a few hours look at cloths stores and then call it a day. But it wasn’t so. Yeah we went to the city and walked around but I found she had similar taste in clothes to me and we went other places and then we went over to her friend’s house. This is where things got fun, I found out these people were like me, I found my German group of friends, and the more I went over there the more it was feeling like home. I saw the similarities and I connected with them on things my co-workers didn’t and wouldn’t understand. It was great and it made me happy, and it made me wish I had met them sooner and then I probably wouldn’t have gone home. That’s another interesting topic; going home. It feels weird to me calling a place home, what is home? Where is home? What does it mean to call a place home? Is it really far to have multiply homes or are they just substitutes until I get home? I have often referred to Chicago as home but now I tend to hesitate before I call it home. It doesn’t really feel like home to me anymore, here has felt more like home than anywhere. But I am leaving here so do I deserve to call it home? When I think about when I made the choice to leave I think I asked the wrong questions. I asked why should I stay? And I didn’t think I had a good enough reason to stay. I thought I had nothing to stay for and I was in an unhappy place at the time. So then the next question was, why should I go back? And the only answer was it was familiar. And looking back now I think I should have ask, where have I been the happiest? And that answer is simple; I have been the happiest in Germany. It is nowhere near as stressful as living in Chicago, I am away from my family so I don’t really have to deal with the drama, and yeah I don’t get paid as much here but I have a much over all better life. Sure I miss the city and I miss my friends but I have many friends here also and I can learn to drive and then go to the city when I please. Yes it is too late to change my mind now, I am coming home I will be working and doing good things but it will always be on my mind, should I go live in Germany?

So last Tuesday on the 19th I got the chance to go to an AC/DC concert. Now I have grown up listening to rock and roll and I love all those old band and everyone always says my taste in music is before my time. I have been to 3 Aerosmith concerts and 1 AC/DC concert and this blog is going to be comparing my two experiences with the two bands. Both of which are at the top of my list of favorite music.First I think we should establish the types of bands we are comparing while most people would both say they are both rock n’ roll bands I think they are both two different types of such. I would say AC/DC is totally hardcore rock and roll and that is their style. While Aerosmith has a bit of a mix, they have some hard rock, some ballads and some rock blues and a decent mix of all. Now I think it’s important to note the difference in songs for the next item I am going to talk about, the atmosphere of the crowd. Now in a previous blog I talked about how Germanys and WAY more chilled at concerts then we are so for this I will be comparing my two Germany concerts. Now also I might add that it may be different because my “seats” were total opposites. For Aerosmith, I was sitting up in the balcony and for AC/DC I got my first floor experience. And boy let me tell you, I am totally going to pay the extra money to get floor ticket to my next Aerosmith concert. It was totally freakin’ awesome! I mean everyone was rocking and having a good time and these were the people who wanted to be there. These were the fans! I mean it was raining most of the night and we still rocked and had a good time. But compared to back home, well us Americans know how to rock, and well we should, we perfected Rock and Roll!I feel I should also note, how grateful I am my boss picked me to go with him. It was a great time and it was a good time to bond with him. Before this I had felt we were sort of on the outs, he hadn’t been saying much to me, good or bad. I had started to worry he might not care about whether I stay or go or what I do with my life, but this time has proved just like all the other bosses and people I have in my life he is interested in where I am going and all I have to offer. So as for which band is better, well I have to say as a whole I love those bad boys from Boston (they’re cuter) but when I want to get down and rock and roll….well I have an AC/DC playlist for that. =)

P.S. You guys are in for a treat I will be posting tomorrow about hitting my one year mark!

There are only a few people I could think of who would fully understand what it is like to be homesick. None of them here. I think the simple definition and what most people think of when they here homesick, is missing home, but it's more than that. For me, it's missing the people who understand me and want to do similar things as me. It's missing the places you would go to all the time and took for granted. It's missing waiting to catch the Red line home and being annoyed when you have to wait more than 5 minutes for the next train during rush hour and you know it's going to be packed. It's not knowing what street you're walking down or where you're going. Not having the orange glow from the street lights or the constant noise from the cars passing by. It's not having the breeze off the lake chill your body to the bones or not needing to wear your winter coat in April. It's the weird feeling you get when you look around and see twice as many trees as you would be able to see buildings. It's when your friends here don't understand you are pushing them to go to the burger place so you can get a little taste of home while your friends back home would understand you have some hidden reason for wanting to go to a certain place. Homesickness is giving one of the cats treats and cuddling with his because you miss your own cat.

The people here I live with are great and I love them, but they don't understand how on the outsideThey don't understand how sometimes I feel like they just don't care. I feel like their mentality is "Well she decided to come to Germany so I don't get why she's always talking about the USA and why she can't just assimilate" Yet the problem I have with this is that none of them have done what I have done so why do they act like they know what I'm going through. None of them have picked up and moved halfway across the world to a place where they know almost no one knows you, live in a country where a majority of the people don't like outlanders least of which Americans, to a place that has nothing to remind you of home.

But I lasted 11 months before I really got home sick and I only have 4 more to go. I'm sure I'll live.